2 janvier 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

Statement From Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan

Under the direction of President Trump, the Department of Defense remains focused on safeguarding our nation. We have deep respect for Secretary Mattis' lifetime of service, and it has been a privilege to serve as his deputy secretary.

As acting secretary of defense, I now look forward to working with President Trump to carry out his vision alongside strong leaders including the service secretaries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the combatant commanders, and senior personnel in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

The Department of Defense continues to be one of our nation's bedrock institutions. Our foundational strength lies in the remarkable men and women who volunteer to serve our country and protect our freedoms, while making immense personal sacrifice. It is an honor to work with such a dedicated team committed to the greatness of our nation.

https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1722850/statement-from-acting-secretary-of-defense-patrick-m-shanahan/

Sur le même sujet

  • Hypersonics: DoD Wants ‘Hundreds of Weapons’ ASAP

    27 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    Hypersonics: DoD Wants ‘Hundreds of Weapons’ ASAP

    “We want to deliver hypersonics at scale,” said R&D director Mark Lewis, from air-breathing cruise missiles to rocket-boosted gliders that fly through space. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has created a “war room” to ramp up production of hypersonic weapons from a handful of prototypes over the last decade to “hundreds of weapons” in the near future, a senior official said Wednesday. Those weapons will range from huge rocket-powered boost-glide missiles, fired from Army trucks and Navy submarines at more than Mach 10, to more compact and affordable air-breathing cruise missiles, fired from aircraft at a relatively modest Mach 5-plus. “It isn't an either-or,” said Mark Lewis, modernization director for Pentagon R&D chief Mike Griffin. “It isn't rocket-boost or air-breathing, we actually want both, because those systems do different things.” Right now, however, US combat units have neither. Inconsistent focus and funding over the years means that “we had a number of programs in the department that were very solid technology development programs, but at the end of those programs, we would have prototypes and we'd have weapons in the single-digit counts,” Lewis said during a webcast with the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute. “If you've got a program that delivers eight missiles and then stops, well, which of the thousand targets in our target set are we going to use those eight missiles against?” With hypersonics now a top priority for both Undersecretary Griffin and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the Pentagon is trying to improve that stop-and-go track record with a new “hypersonic acceleration plan” – no pun intended, Lewis said. Griffin likes to compare the effort to the Cold War, when the US had a massive nuclear weapons infrastructure capable of building complex components by the tens of thousands. “We want to deliver hypersonics at scale,” Lewis said. “That means hundreds of weapons in a short period of time in the hands of the warfighter.” Mass-production, in turn, requires production facilities – but today hypersonic prototypes are basically hand-crafted by R&D labs like Sandia. Lewis and his counterpart in the Pentagon's acquisition & sustainment directorate, Kevin Fahey, are “co-chairing what we're were calling a war room ... looking at the hypersonic industrial base,” he said. “That's not just the primes, but the entire industrial base” down to small, specialized suppliers. Controlling cost is both essential to large-scale production and a huge challenge, Lewis acknowledged. “We don't know what these things cost yet,” he said. “We've asked the primes to consider costs as they're developing.” Which hypersonic weapons the Pentagon buys also makes a major difference. “There are some technology choices we can make that lead us to more cost-effective systems,” he said. “I'm especially enthusiastic about hypersonic weapons that come off the wings of airplanes and come out of bomb bays, [because] I think those are some of the keys to delivering hypersonic capabilities at scale and moderate cost.” Likewise, “[there's] larger investment now in the rocket boost systems,” Lewis said, “[but] one of the reasons I'm so enthusiastic about scramjet-powered systems, air-breathing systems is I think that, fundamentally, they can be lower-cost than their rocket-boosted alternatives.” Why is that? Understanding the policy, it turns out, requires a basic understanding of the physics. Breaking Defense graphic from DoD data Four Types of Hypersonics “Hypersonics isn't a single thing,” Lewis said. “It's a range of applications, a range of attributes, [defined by] the combination of speed and maneuverability and trajectory.” To put it in simple terms – and I'll beg the forgiveness of any aerospace engineers reading this – there are two kinds of hypersonic projectile, based on how they fly: one is an air-breathing engine flying through the atmosphere, like a jet plane or cruise missile; the other is a rocket booster arcing to the edge of space, like an ICBM. There are also two kinds of platform you can launch from: an aircraft in flight high and fast above the earth, or a relatively slow-moving vehicle on or below the surface, like an Army truck, Navy warship or submarine. Combine these and you get four types. Lewis thinks all four could be worth pursuing, although the Pentagon currently has programs – that we know about – for only three: Air-launched boost-glide: Air Force ARRW (Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon). The Air Force also had another program in this category, HCSW (Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon), but they canceled it to focus on ARRW, which the service considers more innovative and promising. Surface-launched boost-glide: Army LRHW (Long Range Hypersonic Weapon) and Navy CPS (Conventional Prompt Strike). Both weapons share the same rocket booster, built by the Navy, and the same Common Hypersonic Glide Body, built by the Army, but one tailors the package to launch from a wheeled vehicle and the other from a submarine. Air-launched air-breathing: HAWC (Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept) and HSW-ab (Hypersonic Strike Weapon-air breathing). Arguably the most challenging and cutting-edge technology, these programs are both currently run by DARPA, which specializes in high-risk, high-return research, but they'll be handed over to the Air Force when they mature. Surface-launched air-breathing: This is the one category not in development – at least not in the unclassified world. But Lewis said, “eventually, you could see some ground-launched air breathers as well. I personally think those are very promising.” Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages, Lewis explained. Rocket boosters are proven technology, offering tremendous speed and range. The Minuteman III ICBM, introduced in 1970, can travel over 6,000 miles at Mach 23. Their one drawback is that ICBMs can't steer. Once launched, they follow a predictable course like a cannon ball, which is why they're called ballistic missiles. The big innovation of boost-glide weaponry is that it replaces the traditional warhead with an agile glider. Once the rocket booster burns out, the glide body detaches and coasts the rest of the way, skipping nimbly across the upper layers of the atmosphere like a stone across the pond. But boost-glide has some big limitations. First, once the rocket booster detaches, the glide body has no engine of its own so it just coasts, losing speed throughout its flight. Second, precisely because the rocket launch is so powerful, it puts tremendous strain on the weapon, whose delicate electronics must be hardened against shock and heat. Third, the booster is big, because a rocket not only has to carry fuel, it has to carry tanks of oxygen to burn the fuel. Breaking Defense graphic from DoD data An air-breathing engine, by contrast, can be significantly smaller. It just has to carry the fuel, because it can scoop up all the oxygen it needs from the atmosphere. That means the whole weapon can be smaller, making it much easier to fit on an aircraft, and that it can accelerate freely during flight instead of just coasting, making it more maneuverable. But while conventional jet engines are well-proven technology, they don't function at hypersonic speeds, because the airflow pours their intakes far too fast. So you need a sophisticated alternative such as a scramjet, a complex, costly technology so far found only on experimental vehicles, like the Air Force's revolutionary Boeing X-51. Even with a scramjet, you can't fly too high because the air doesn't provide the needed oxygen. That means air-breathing weapons can't reach the same near-space altitudes as boost-glide missiles. They also can't fly nearly as fast. Lewis expects air-breathers will probably top out around Mach 7, half or less the peak speed of a boost-glide weapon. (That said, remember the glider will have slowed down somewhat by the time it reaches the target). Sandia National Laboratories glide vehicle, the ancestor of the Army-built Common Hypersonic Glide Body The platform you launch from also has a major impact on performance. Warships, submarines, and long-bodied heavy trucks can carry bigger weapons than aircraft, but the weapons they carry need to be bigger because they have to start from low altitude and low speed and go all the way to high-altitude hypersonic flight. By contrast, an air-launched weapon doesn't need to be as big, because it's already flying high and fast even before it turns on its motor. All these factors suggest that the big boost-glide weapons are probably best launched from land or sea, the smaller air-breathing ones from aircraft in flight. But since boost-gliders go farther and faster than air-breathers, you still want them as an option for your bombers for certain targets. On the flipside, while a naval vessel or ground vehicle has plenty of room to carry boost-glide weapons for ultra-long-range strikes, it can also use the same space to carry a larger number of the smaller air-breathers for closer targets. “We're interested in basically the full range,” Lewis said. “We've got some ideas of things we want to put into play quickly, but we're also extremely open-minded about future applications, future technologies.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/hypersonics-dod-wants-hundreds-of-weapons-asap/

  • Defense Industry Wants To Maintain Momentum For European FCAS

    20 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Defense Industry Wants To Maintain Momentum For European FCAS

    German parliamentary approvals to fund the demonstrators for the European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) have been hailed as a major milestone, yet there appear to be plenty more dramas to come. Industry had been increasingly impatient over Berlin's political fumbling of support for the initial Phase 1A demonstration work, worth €155 million ($170 million), which is funded equally by Paris and Berlin. Contracts had been expected at last year's Paris Air Show but did not materialize; even a January deadline agreed to by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel came and went. That deadline followed warnings from industry. And at the end of January, the air chiefs of the French, Germany and Spanish air forces wrote jointly in the French newspaper Le Figaro, stressing the importance of the project and warning that it must progress or risk losing momentum. The partner countries want to bring the FCAS into front-line use in 2040. “This cooperation is essential for the development of competitive European air capabilities to guarantee the security and sovereignty of the countries of Europe,” the air chiefs wrote. “All this while we must intensify our multinational collaboration efforts, in order to encourage the development of a common strategic vision, contributing directly to the defense of Europe.” In the end, the nod from the Bundestag emerged just hours prior to the release of Airbus' 2019 results on Feb. 13. The funding pays for the first 18 months of work—Phase 1A—to develop the demonstrators and mature new technologies, and it will support work by prime contractors Dassault and Airbus as well as their partners MTU Aero Engines, MBDA, Safran and Thales. There will be four strands to the demonstration program, the most significant being the flight-testing of the fighter aircraft technology demonstrator representative of the Next-Generation Fighter (NGF) design, with Dassault acting as prime and Airbus as a main partner. The program will also deliver remote carriers, the reusable unmanned aircraft systems that will operate alongside the fighter as a loyal wingman or to provide electronic warfare or surveillance capability. Airbus will lead on the development of the remote carriers, with MBDA as a main partner. Airbus in conjunction with Thales will work on development of the combat cloud network that will connect the NGF with other platforms including the remote carriers as well as other fighters, tankers and intelligence-gathering assets, likely using advanced within- and beyond-line-of-sight communication methods. Meanwhile, the fighter demonstrator will use an engine featuring technologies planned for the future NGF powerplant. Work on this demonstrator engine-—likely based on the Safran M88 from the Dassault Rafale—will be led by Safran, with MTU as main partner. Airbus says a simulation environment will be jointly developed by the company as well to “ensure consistency between demonstrators.” The next step—Phase 1B-—is where the challenges could begin to mount, as it requires considerably more investment than 1A, likely well in excess of €1 billion ($1.1 billion), begging the question: If German politics can hobble progress over investments worth less than €100 million, what would the delays be if the investments required are 3-4 times as much? The next step—Phase 1B-—is where the challenges could begin to mount, as it requires considerably more investment than 1A, likely well in excess of €1 billion ($1.1 billion), begging the question: If German politics can hobble progress over investments worth less than €100 million, what would the delays be if the investments required are 3-4 times as much? Phase 1B also will involve the induction of Spanish companies into the program, including Madrid's chosen industry lead Indra, whose role has been protested by Airbus since the decision was announced last September. “We think it's a mistake to select Indra as the Spanish coordinator for the FCAS,” Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury told journalists, adding that the company lobbied for the decision to be reviewed. He contends that Indra lacks experience in the development of combat aircraft and the systems that will ultimately support the FCAS. Airbus had been widely expected to lead the program in Spain, given its past experience building the A400M in Seville and performing local assembly of the Eurofighter for the Spanish Air Force. “This is something we have shared with the Spanish government, and we have offered our hands to reverse the situation and make sure the best support is given from Spain to the FCAS and that Spain is getting the best from the FCAS,” Faury added. Spain does not seem to be listening, however. On Feb. 18, Madrid announced Spanish industry partners who will begin working on the program in support of joint concept studies with France and Germany before the summer, perhaps as early as May. According to the Spanish defense ministry, Airbus' Spanish business will support development of the fighter and low-observable technologies. ITP Aero, owned by Rolls-Royce, will support the engine development, with work on sensors and systems to be performed by Indra. A partnership of three companies—GMV, Sener Aeroespacial and Tecnobit-Grupo Oesia—will work on the remote carriers. “This industrial alliance has already been notified to Germany and France . . . so that negotiations can begin to meet the planned objectives and achieve the full integration of Spain into the NGWS [Next-Generation Weapons System] project before the summer of this year,” Spanish defense officials say. In the meantime, industry is looking for a smooth transition from Phase 1A to 1B in order to meet a target of flying a fighter demonstrator as early as 2026. “We shouldn't underestimate the huge progress which has been made for a program of that magnitude and complexity,” Faury told Aviation Week. “I am positive and optimistic [based] on the work which has been done over the last two years. We will play the role we think we have to play at each and every milestone of the program.” Phase 1B is expected to get underway in 2022. Prior to that, the three air chiefs have agreed to try to bring greater convergence between their operational needs and are hoping to sign a document “specifying this common vision” at the ILA Air Show in Berlin in May. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/defense-industry-wants-maintain-momentum-european-fcas

  • Lockheed Martin making final push for Greek frigate construction, modernization work

    23 mars 2022 | International, Naval

    Lockheed Martin making final push for Greek frigate construction, modernization work

    Greece has already committed to buying three French frigates -- but there are still a lot of gaps in its surface modernization program that Lockheed Martin is trying to fill, now that talks with Greece have been extended for six more months.

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